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Monday, October 18, 2010

Cops Fighting Back Against Being Videotaped

By Ericka Blount Danois
Diop Kamau, a police officer who is African
American, has made it his life's purpose to uncover wrongdoing on the
part of cops by using hidden microphones and cameras to tape incidents.
Some cops say this is impeding their jobs, because they are scared to
aggressively treat aggressive perpetrators.

Without this kind of citizen journalism, though -- which most infamously began with the Rodney King beating being videotaped -- many criminals posing as police officers would still be on the streets.

Kamau was inspired to begin to uncover these sorts of abuses, after his father was roughed up after a 1987 traffic stop, according to an article in USA Today.
After the incident, he turned to a second career, recording police
across the country in often abusive encounters with the public.
Some of the videos made their way to network and cable television. Most
recently, new bans are popping up in states that could preclude
citizens from videotaping police officers. In Illinois, Maryland and
Massachusetts, some police have responded by trying to limit such
recordings, when they believe those recordings interfere with police
actions.

In Maryland, motorcyclist Anthony Graber was
charged with felony violations of Maryland's wiretapping law for
recording a March 5th encounter with a gun-brandishing state trooper
during a traffic stop. The law requires both parties to consent to the
recording of a private conversation. Graber faced a maximum 16-year
prison sentence if convicted until Horford County Circuit Court Judge Emory Pitt
threw out the case September 27th, saying, "Those of us who are public
officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately
accountable to the public."

To continue to have bans like these in states across the country would
most certainly be a set-back in what has uncovered a number of police
abuses that many citizens have complained about for years but never had
concrete evidence to support their claims in court. Community activists
have long been preparing young people on how to react to police on stop
and frisks and traffic stops and the rules of obtaining badge numbers.

And civilian complaint review boards have monitored police abuse in
recent years, but nothing has been as damning as the actual videotapes
of police officers abusing citizens that are often first posted to
YouTube, and receive so many hits, that mainstream news organizations
are forced to cover the stories.
Police officers have long been protected for routine stops by dash cams
that are located in their cars, so why would they be wary of private
citizens having the same privileges?

Just about every day, it seems, there is fresh video of cops engaged in
controversial actions: Police slamming an unarmed man to the street in
Denver. A college student thrashed by officers with batons during a University of Maryland
basketball victory celebration. An Oakland transit officer fatally
shooting an unarmed man on a train platform (which you can watch above).

According to USA Today, while working for his private investigative firm, policeabuse.com,
Kamau walked in to the Broward County Sheriff's Office reception area
with a hidden camera and found immediate problems with the way officers
and employees dealt with the public. Kamau says police routinely
provided incorrect information to people or could not answer basic
questions about department policy, such as how to file a complaint
against police.

The police commander says the incident "sparked a lot of activity"
within the agency, leading to changes in public reception area
staffing, including retraining. Police officials also invited Kamau to
help train new cadets.

Kamau, who helps clients resolve their grievances with police, says he
counsels many of them to arm themselves with cameras to support their
cases.

"Video is making victims more credible," Kamau says. "If Rodney King
would have tried to tell his story without video, nobody would have
believed it."

SCLC TODAY

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